Also - my key question about all of this would be, were The Wager's (and its squadron more generally) conditions that different/exceptional than the typical British Navy seafaring adventure of the time?
It kind of seems like my takeaway from the book was "Not really, that's just sort of how it was back then" but yours seems to be "Yes, absolutely, this PARTICULAR venture was exceptionally ill-fated and thus should have been postponed or cancelled."
Put differently, the question would be - if the British Navy had adopted a policy of "We will only approve relatively safe missions wherein manpower is available, widespread disease is unlikely, etc." would they have approved any missions at all?
I suppose that's a question for Bean (I'll ping him), but given the reactions of the Admirals and Captains I was sort of assuming that the DEGREE of "these sailors are completely unsuitable, we are literally taking old men who can't walk out of their pensioner homes" coupled with "we're just going after a treasure ship, which we can't even ambush anymore because they know we're coming, and anyway this isn't a meaningful strategic goal beyond prize money" was relatively unusual for the British Navy proper (as opposed to, e.g. privateers).
My position isn't "they should never take risks" but rather that this particular case should have given someone in the Admiralty pause.
I'm with Eleanor on this one. I read a different book (or half of it, at least) but this was not a normal operation, and the bit where they were loading pensioners aboard is something I've never heard of elsewhere. I do think the treasure ship was strategically meaningful (wars take a lot of money, and taking the ship denies it to the Spanish and gives the crown some of the loot) but other than that, this is obviously a terrible plan in a way that no other expedition I can think of offhand was. Even the ones that end in disease and failure.
Yeah I guess I should clarify that it's not that I don't think taking a huge treasure ship is worth doing, I just mean this wasn't exactly a do-or-die defense of London.
the United States went to war with England over "pressing" The British Nave was capturing US Navy and Merchant Vessels, and forcing the US Sailors into their Navy. It was a common thing for them.
The War of 1812 is my favorite war (I grew up near Baltimore) and I gave real consideration to including a whole digression about it but I decided this article was already pretty long. I guess I should have gone for it!
I definitely did (I read all of your mini-reviews) and then forgot because it was an anti-recommend for a book about a topic I mostly don't care about per se.
I'm only 2 chapters in, so I haven't gotten to much of the issues you described, but now that you mention it, I did already start to notice a few instances of the sort of snideness you described. I suspect that if I make it to the end, my overall impression will align with yours. For now, I'm still glad I picked it up -- if only for the inspiration to write this essay.
I must have done a poor job writing that then, because it ended up in my "Good" tier which is something like "Recommended to most people, except those that already know they dislike the genre/style/etc."
I generally liked the book - with my objections being of the "here's what prevented me from LOVING it" sort!
I already have so many amazing books that people LOVED in my to-read pile that anything short of "It was amazing!" tends to get downranked, and also I usually avoid reading about the Golden Age of Sail because, well, all my friends already know all about it so I can't really surprise them with cool facts very often, and whenever I try to make an argument based on history of these eras I'm working off of insufficient knowledge to really ram home my points --
See also needing to ask Bean about the British Navy, and I'm probably going to end up with egg on my face :P
Also - my key question about all of this would be, were The Wager's (and its squadron more generally) conditions that different/exceptional than the typical British Navy seafaring adventure of the time?
It kind of seems like my takeaway from the book was "Not really, that's just sort of how it was back then" but yours seems to be "Yes, absolutely, this PARTICULAR venture was exceptionally ill-fated and thus should have been postponed or cancelled."
Put differently, the question would be - if the British Navy had adopted a policy of "We will only approve relatively safe missions wherein manpower is available, widespread disease is unlikely, etc." would they have approved any missions at all?
I suppose that's a question for Bean (I'll ping him), but given the reactions of the Admirals and Captains I was sort of assuming that the DEGREE of "these sailors are completely unsuitable, we are literally taking old men who can't walk out of their pensioner homes" coupled with "we're just going after a treasure ship, which we can't even ambush anymore because they know we're coming, and anyway this isn't a meaningful strategic goal beyond prize money" was relatively unusual for the British Navy proper (as opposed to, e.g. privateers).
My position isn't "they should never take risks" but rather that this particular case should have given someone in the Admiralty pause.
I'm with Eleanor on this one. I read a different book (or half of it, at least) but this was not a normal operation, and the bit where they were loading pensioners aboard is something I've never heard of elsewhere. I do think the treasure ship was strategically meaningful (wars take a lot of money, and taking the ship denies it to the Spanish and gives the crown some of the loot) but other than that, this is obviously a terrible plan in a way that no other expedition I can think of offhand was. Even the ones that end in disease and failure.
Yeah I guess I should clarify that it's not that I don't think taking a huge treasure ship is worth doing, I just mean this wasn't exactly a do-or-die defense of London.
Wait until you find out how it ends!
Pretty sure it wasn't with the dumbshit Admiralty lords getting hanged :(
the United States went to war with England over "pressing" The British Nave was capturing US Navy and Merchant Vessels, and forcing the US Sailors into their Navy. It was a common thing for them.
The War of 1812 is my favorite war (I grew up near Baltimore) and I gave real consideration to including a whole digression about it but I decided this article was already pretty long. I guess I should have gone for it!
Wondering if you ever read my DSL mini-review of this book.
I definitely did (I read all of your mini-reviews) and then forgot because it was an anti-recommend for a book about a topic I mostly don't care about per se.
I'm only 2 chapters in, so I haven't gotten to much of the issues you described, but now that you mention it, I did already start to notice a few instances of the sort of snideness you described. I suspect that if I make it to the end, my overall impression will align with yours. For now, I'm still glad I picked it up -- if only for the inspiration to write this essay.
I must have done a poor job writing that then, because it ended up in my "Good" tier which is something like "Recommended to most people, except those that already know they dislike the genre/style/etc."
I generally liked the book - with my objections being of the "here's what prevented me from LOVING it" sort!
I already have so many amazing books that people LOVED in my to-read pile that anything short of "It was amazing!" tends to get downranked, and also I usually avoid reading about the Golden Age of Sail because, well, all my friends already know all about it so I can't really surprise them with cool facts very often, and whenever I try to make an argument based on history of these eras I'm working off of insufficient knowledge to really ram home my points --
See also needing to ask Bean about the British Navy, and I'm probably going to end up with egg on my face :P
"I already have so many amazing books that people LOVED in my to-read pile that anything short of "It was amazing!" tends to get downranked"
Fair - and yes, exact same for me.